Teacher Diaries: Countdown

So. Six days from today I'll be starting long-term intensive placements!

Intensives is a three-week period during the infamous "Methods Block" in which all of us elementary majors spend all day, four days a week (Fridays are debrief day), in pairs in K-4 classrooms. My friend S and I will be going downtown to a little multi-grade school in an urban area and spending the time in their grades 1-4 room!

I'm feeling super excited and encouraged as I have wanted to teach multi-grade for a long time and this will be my second long-term multi-grade placement! I am really feeling God's encouragement and leading in this and can't wait to see how it turns out! Hope to write down some of what happens so I can remember. Tomorrow is orientation day, so I'll probably be writing about that later. :)

Who You Are

I look at the e-mail, smile--and cringe inwardly. It's the same old thing.

"You write such good lesson plans. You are planning so well. Your ideas are so good." On and on and on...

I don't do well when people praise me. I don't like it. Oh it's good for a minute, but the aftertaste is bitter. Being told I did a good job, a great job, or the best job is like eating potato chips when I'm hungry--I just need one more, one more, one more. And there is a pressure that if I don't do at least that good next time, I won't be appreciated any more. Praise, for me, creates an inability to fail that is nearly stifling. Just sit with me, ask me questions, be interested in my answers--show that you like me for who I am. Don't praise me for what I do.

So I look at the e-mail, tuck it away in a folder in case I need a reference, and try to convince myself that my teacher really means that she likes me. But that is hard to do.

Thinking this morning, in prayer group--how often do I just appreciate God for who He is?

Progression: A Little Story

Last snowfall of winter; now it's 70 degrees! :)

Maybe I should give a little background to the resurrection of this blog...

Almost exactly four years ago, February 26 of 2010, I stood on a beach in Lima, Peru, and God called me to missions--a call later reinforced by His Word, by friends, by family. That call--and His ongoing guidance--led me to change my major from communications to teaching; led me to plan on going overseas at some point or another; led me to be open to whatever He had in mind.

By a year and a half ago, I was questioning everything spiritual, everything Christian. The call was forgotten, overseas no longer really an option, God's will something I only occasionally played around with the thought of.

What changed? I thought I could. 

"Could" do a lot of things. Could be a top-notch teacher. Could be a star student. Could have everyone like me, everyone be my friend. Could...could...could...

By the end of last semester, by Christmas, I had decided that I wasn't willing to give up on God yet (the most important thing) and I'd also come face-to-face with the reality that I couldn't do any of those things I'd thought I could. That was the first step.

Then God brought me full circle, back to where we'd started. To what He'd asked me to do in the first place. To follow His dreams, to let them become my own. Because, how does it profit me to gain the whole world but lose my soul?

This time, my answer is yes. Yes, and yes.

Audio Adrenaline "Kings and Queens"

Love this song, love this video. That's all.

Heart Changes

Last week we taught a lesson plan, two other classmates and I.

It was an awesome lesson plan, and it went near perfectly, but the big thing that really happened was that I realized something major, something I have been struggling with ever since I started the education program.

I AM called to kids. 

I haven't been sure of that for three years--now, I am. And right now, those "kids" equal teaching. I am so grateful to know that. But someday? Well...

Tonight I am reading this article, and it was written two days ago and I haven't read it yet because too busy. Or maybe because God let me wait. Because I couldn't have read it at a better time. I'm trying not to cry.

I want that. I want those kids. I want overseas again. I love it--so much I love it.

I have no earthly idea how it will ever work out. I have big responsibilities here--I have a horse, for goodness' sakes--how am I ever going to get to Guatemala--or Peru--or Dominican Republic--or China--or Ireland--or Taiwan--or--

I don't know. But I know God's got a plan, and He's putting it back on my heart right now, and the best way to get me to do something for the long haul is to take me away from it a while and then head me back into it. I don't know if that's what He's doing right now, or if He's just trying to get my focus back where it needs to be here.

Heart changes are tough. But right now, it's also the proverbial cold water on a hot day.

Homeschoolers Teach!

I feel like that should be the real title of this blog. Maybe I will change it lol.

It seems that there are a remarkable number of homeschool kids in the education world. We don't overwhelm the department or anything, but I wouldn't expect homeschooled students (who enjoyed it!) to go into traditional education--but we do!

In fact I have another K-10th homeschooled girl in my class, and another one who was homeschooled just through kindergarten. We shall call the first one Liz (not her real name) and she and I hang out a lot. Mostly because we understand and enjoy each other's corny homeschooler jokes, plus we're of very similar personalities and teaching styles, so we get along well. I spend a lot of time with the other one too (we'll call her B) but we are more opposite personalities, lol.

So as I resurrect this blog I think I will do so in the name of being real, of talking about school and homeschool and college and teaching and teacher preparation. Of what it's like really, and of course how all this plays into God's call in my life and working for His children (which of course, is the current title...oh decisions).

Me + Lesson Plans = Error, So....???

I have this difficulty.

I am very bad at adapting existing lesson plans.

I know this is bad, because what am I going to do when I'm out there in the real world, come up with all my stuff from my head?! Surely not.

Or maybe so. I swear I'm not THAT much of an overachiever, so most likely when I get Out There, my crazy brain will take it down a notch and I'll be able to use someone else's stuff. But in the meantime, anything "someone else" is 95% unusable.

Ugh.

I'm hoping to be posting some of my lesson plans/ideas on here, in case anyone else has a mind like mine and likes my ideas. Feel free to steal. :) 

In Which the Second Homeschooler Prepares for College

Me little brother is getting ready for college.

Good. grief. This, I cannot believe.

Neither can I believe that I am halfway through my junior year and, as such, will be doing intensives next semester and student teaching a year from this winter!

Anyway, B2 is getting ready. He's home-schooled all the way through, too, K-12--again, taking it a year at a time and exploring other options from time to time. As the second one through, he gets to be barraged with advice from three people! I'm sure he is very grateful! [or something...]

People ask whether academics or social life is the hardest part of a homeschooler adjusting to college. Neither, I think. The hardest thing for all of us that I've known (who have had, admittedly, a decently rigorous high-school curriculum) was losing our freedom to do what we wanted, when we wanted!

My brother's best friend put it this way: "I'm losing my childhood!"

B2 feels that way too. Fortunately my schedule has been somewhat restrictive for a while, so we kind of got used to it. Doesn't make it a great deal easier, though. Vacations are limited, mission trips are limited, everything is limited. When we aren't in school, we're working, so even summers aren't a blank slate. He has to start looking for jobs and filling out applications soon.

It's not fun, but he will get used to it. I think he will enjoy college more than I do, actually--I'm not much of a "people person," while he is.

In the meantime, I wade through field experience (basically a practicum for ed. majors) and classwork and my three jobs, and try not to be too flippant about his adjustment phase. ;)

I think I should start following some more homeschool/classroom blogs. Good for getting ideas, you know. :) And this blog needs an update too!

On another note, I'm SO excited about this school year--and not because of the classes, though they include some of my favorites (Inclusive/Special Ed., ESL, and Language Arts Methods)--but because I am so close to getting done! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! :)

Writers' Notebook

This, is fantastic. :)